Pain Management Evaluations

I offer mental health and biopsychosocial evaluations for patients suffering from chronic pain. I can help untangle the web of medical and physical effects, psychiatric symptoms, and personality factors, which are often all intertwined in chronic pain syndrome.

There are three different purposes for mental health and biopsychosocial evaluations related to chronic pain:

To assess the impact of personality, psychiatric, physical and motivational factors that can affect symptoms of chronic pain.

To measure psychological and emotional distress stemming from pain due to an incident or injury at work.

The biopsychosocial model for understanding chronic pain defines pain as the result of various biological, psychological, medical, and social factors with physical and psychosocial consequences and dysfunction. Some factors that are involved with how one ultimately experiences pain include: past family history (how a patient may have been “taught” by their family to adapt and cope with pain), past abuse, other psychological history such as depression or anxiety or psychological trauma, the patient’s genetic biology of how pain is experienced, the exact nature of the specific physical damage from a traumatic incident, current family and employer support or conflict, and one’s own understanding of how physical trauma and psychological coping mechanisms interact.

How one thinks about pain, and attempts to cope with pain, can have a great impact on one’s actual pain experience, including severity and functional impact. One’s understanding about pain frequently intensifys anxiety and increase levels of depression, which are frequent co-occurring symptoms with chronic pain. Even inactivity because of pain can intensify depression, agitation, and insomnia, creating a vicious cycle which makes the experience of pain worse, as well as exacerbate the psychological and functional consequences. Thorough evaluation and treatment are critical in pain management to provide an accurate picture of all the working parts.

The cost of this evaluation is $250, including written report sent to both yourself and the physician.